970 vram really 4g?

[johnrain5440]

Did they update the 970 to use the 4g or it's stil using the 3.5 g? Just choosing which one 970 or r9 390 at the moment because I sold my video card and I can't game till I buy one.

 

[cleanshot911]

You can't update it to use all 4 gb efficiently, it's a hardware problem. It uses all 4 gbs, but 0.5 gbs of it slows the whole process down. As someone who owns two gtx 970s, I'd say buy the r9 390. I love my 970s, but I'm going to have to sell them in the next two years if I want the VRAM to keep up.

 

[MarkW]

Nvidia cannot change the GTX 970. The problem is in how they designed the memory controller within the GPU itself, and they are already deep into working on next years GPU's. So the GTX 970 stays as it is.

 

[blazorthon]

If you only use one card, you will NEVER run into a VRAM capacity problem. The GTX 970 doesn't have so much performance that it can perform well and need more than 3.5GB of VRAM (even the 980 Ti and Fury X don't perform THAT well). As it is, there are few real situations where 2GB is not sufficient, so 3.5GB is hardly easy to break. Even if you do, the performance drop is still not nearly as big as it would be if it didn't have the extra 512MB since it still saves it from swapping to main system memory over the PCIe bus.

As it is now, I wouldn't get one of AMD's high end cards because of the huge power consumption difference, but that's me. I'd rather spend more on a Nidia and get a more affordable power supply and lower electric bill. You never think about it until you're three years later and it turns out you spent an extra $40 in power compared to the Nvidia competitor. Fury X is AMD's only card that's really competitive in gaming power consumption thanks to HBM, but that doesn't help the people looking to spend less than $650 on an AMD card.

 

[eddnav]

What about game modding with the 970 GTX? with my measly 4850 1GB card I used to do crazy stuff like installing Qarls Texture Pack on oblivion and that went without a hitch. Seems like this problem edges me out of this since lots of games like Shadows of Mordor, modded Skyrim and modded GTA V are really close to using 4GB.

 

[cleanshot911]

What about game modding with the 970 GTX? with my measly 4850 1GB card I used to do crazy stuff like installing Qarls Texture Pack on oblivion and that went without a hitch. Seems like this problem edges me out of this since lots of games like Shadows of Mordor, modded Skyrim and modded GTA V are really close to using 4GB.

I play Skyrim all the time with 50+ mods using my two gtx 970s at 1440p. As long as I have anti-aliasing off I can play at a pretty smooth 60fps in a very heavily modded outskirts of Whiterun. You'll still get frame dips because Skyrim is too big to not be a little buggy, but my god does it run beautifully. I'm not happy that I have to have AA off, but if you intend to mod you're probably going to have to play without AA, or at least with low AA, because you're gtx 970 probably wouldn't like it. That's just my personal experience.

 

[blazorthon]

As a note, it is not the GTX 970 having VRAM capacity issues there, that' the mods being too intensive and whether it's a GTX 970 or a Radeon 390 won't change that.

Also, it is a well proven fact that just because a game can use more than say 2GB or 3GB, does not mean that it has a performance impact. Give a game a GTX Titan Z with 12GB and you'll see tons of memory being used, but the game will happily function with a fraction of that memory capacity without any issues with a comparably performing setup.

Give a game more memory and it will use more, but that just means it gets lazy about removing data it isn't using anymore. If the capacity is there, then it doesn't need to remove textures and such that aren't in use. This does not impact performance, it just gives misleading VRAM usage numbers. The 970 won't see issues with capacity simply because its capacity is enough for its performance even in SLI. Just look at AMD's Fury X. The card performs on par with the GTX 980 Ti in most heavy situations, but it's only a 4GB card that is still nowhere near a VRAM capacity bottleneck and thats with only a .5GB advantage despite a significant performance difference from the 970.

Case in point, if the 970 runs into a capacity issue, then the 980 would too because it has only a small VRAM advantage.

 

[MarkW]

Case in point, if the 970 runs into a capacity issue, then the 980 would too because it has only a small VRAM advantage.

This might be splitting hairs a little, but that statement is actually incorrect.

The GTX 970 is a cut down version of the same GPU that is in the GTX 980, One thing that was "cut" from the GTX 980 happens to be a set of memory crossbars. So the 980 uses all of its 4GB at the same high speed. But the 970 can only use 3.5GB of its 4GB at the same high speed, and then that last half a gigabyte can only be accessed at 1/8th the speed. I will be the first one to admit that it takes a whole lot of things to happen to even get to using this last half a gigabyte, but on the other hand, going forward, it will happen more and more often with newer games.

So its pretty clear that any slowdown/stuttering problem the 970 has due to the half gig of slow memory access is not an issue with the 980.

 

[blazorthon]

This might be splitting hairs a little, but that statement is actually incorrect.

The GTX 970 is a cut down version of the same GPU that is in the GTX 980, One thing that was "cut" from the GTX 980 happens to be a set of memory crossbars. So the 980 uses all of its 4GB at the same high speed. But the 970 can only use 3.5GB of its 4GB at the same high speed, and then that last half a gigabyte can only be accessed at 1/8th the speed. I will be the first one to admit that it takes a whole lot of things to happen to even get to using this last half a gigabyte, but on the other hand, going forward, it will happen more and more often with newer games.

So its pretty clear that any slowdown/stuttering problem the 970 has due to the half gig of slow memory access is not an issue with the 980.

I am well aware of that and my statement was still correct. The 980 only performs about 16% better and even ignoring the 970's last .5GB, pretending it is only a 3.5GB card, the 970 only has 14% more VRAM capacity. I repeat, if the 970 is running into VRAM problems, then the 980 will be right there with it. That the 970 has the last .5GB, even running slower than the rest of its memory, puts it in a good position since it's still not going to swap to main memory any sooner than the 980.

 

[renz496]

That 3.5 thingy is by design. Nvidia already mentioned that they choose to make that way so it is possible for 970 to have 4GB of VRAM. As a single card you probably don't have to worry too much about it. But in SLI the config that is different story.

 

[johnrain5440]

So is the $400 CDN pricetag worth buying or wait till it drops?

 

[blazorthon]

So is the $400 CDN pricetag worth buying or wait till it drops?

That's pretty much the same price we pay in the USA if you convert currencies. That's a little cheaper than most actually. If you can wait, then the price might come down, but then again, it might not come down for months. In my opinion, it is worth the price.

 

[johnrain5440]

So is the $400 CDN pricetag worth buying or wait till it drops?

That's pretty much the same price we pay in the USA if you convert currencies. That's a little cheaper than most actually. If you can wait, then the price might come down, but then again, it might not come down for months. In my opinion, it is worth the price.

I've got someone on Kijiji selling a used 970 for $350 (Asus Strix). I wonder if used card are worth too.

 

[blazorthon]

I've got someone on Kijiji selling a used 970 for $350 (Asus Strix). I wonder if used card are worth too.

It's usually not a bad thing to buy a used graphics card like it is with a hard drive or power supply, so you could consider it without much risk. However, I can say that I'm not familiar with Kijiji, so I won't make a recommendation beyond this strictly because I don't know for myself how reliable the site and the people on it are. Is it like ebay?

 

[johnrain5440]

I've got someone on Kijiji selling a used 970 for $350 (Asus Strix). I wonder if used card are worth too.

It's usually not a bad thing to buy a used graphics card like it is with a hard drive or power supply, so you could consider it without much risk. However, I can say that I'm not familiar with Kijiji, so I won't make a recommendation beyond this strictly because I don't know for myself how reliable the site and the people on it are. Is it like ebay?

It's like craigslist local

 

[johnrain5440]

Thanks for the reply everyone! I bought my ASUS Strix GeForce GTX 970 and happy how it performs for GTA V (very high settings). I could have gotten the r9 390 but I got this used for $300 which I think is a good deal.